All posts by PopCultureGangster

So my friend John (quick introduction to three major characters in my life: John, Eric (a.k.a. “Erock”), Lynn, and myself have been friends since seventh grade. Pretty much family, really) just left after a night of planning for a great lost weekend for him, Eric, and myself. We were originally thinking of going to NYC and then going to Philly in a single weekend, but between the costs of doing that and the amount of travel time involved, it just makes more sense to do one city.

We’re actually leaning towards Philly, since its less expensive and its basically new to us (I was there about 8 or 9 years ago for a student conference in college, and had a great time, but hell, I wasn’t even 21) as opposed to NYC, which we’ve all been to at least once in the last few years.

If anyone actually starts reading this thing, perhaps they could make some reccomendations as to what to do and where to go while in Philly? I’m looking for good restaurant reccomendations, brewpubs, comedy clubs, rock bands to try to check out, live music venues, clubs, great music stores, cooly funky shops (yeah, I know we need to hit South Street), and the like. Places that a couple of guy friends could have fun, have a good laugh, hear some good music, eat some good food, and drink some good drink.

A couple of years ago, the pundits were running around predicting the death of the music industry because of MP3’s, digital formats, pirating, etc. etc. blah blah blah.

Well, let me tell you, I have recently realized that for the first time ever, even *I* may be overwhelmed by the music choices out there now. I now have a CD collection thats over 1,200 strong, an iTunes program that has 100’s of songs, both downloaded and ripped from my CD collection, and XM radio that I can use both in my car and in my house, as well as an additional subscription to them online so I can listen to them at work. Add to that just the regular radio stations out there, and I’m able to be surrounded by music 24/7/365.

Now I’m thinking of adding an MP3 player to that mix just to be a bit more "portable" (was away on a one-night business trip last week and brought along a CD player and a CD, and realized that it would have been nice to have an iPod, in case anyone would like to buy it for me….).

Don’t get me wrong – I’m lovin’ it, but I’ve had XM for almost a year now, and iTunes for about six months, and I’m realizing that my CD’s are starting to collect dust unless I’m ripping them onto iTunes. Though I’m still buying new ones. Its remarkable to be able to have all these great musical choices at my fingertips.

I guess the question is this – do all these new channels of distribution have any positive impacts on the art of music? I’m listening to the "Unsigned" channel on XM as I write this, and I hear a lot of stuff that’s not groundbreaking, but still far better than most of the crap that’s on regular radio (which I actually can’t stand any more, except for the local classical and public radio stations, which don’t have all the usual obnoxious FM radio station hooey). I’m glad that they are getting airtime SOMEWHERE, but wouldn’t it be great if more people could hear them?

Welcome to my first blog entry. Basically giving it a test drive to see how it would work for my job, which happens to be marketing these products: http://www.timexhealthcare.com/ I know the web site needs help, but that’s why I’m there!

Special thanks to John Cass for being my "blog mentor," and as my first act of blogging repricocity, here’s a link to his blog: http://pr.typepad.com.